U2 Working With Danger Mouse on New Album

Bono & Co. are in-studio with the superstar producer, and the new material could be out by year's end.

We've been hearing about U2 working on a new album for quite some time now, but with their recent releases lacking the fire or poetic majesty of their earlier work, hope had been fading for another knockout punch from Dublin's pride. That is, until news of Danger Mouse's involvement broke.

Bassist Adam Clayton has revealed that the group is working with the superstar producer, and the recorded results could be out by year's end. In an interview with Irish publication Hot Press, Clayton reportedly said U2 "very much want to have a record out by the end of the year, September, October, November. That kind of time."

As for Danger Mouse's involvement, "He's on it. He's excited," Clayton says. "It's a great team and feels very liberating at the moment — anything goes. We have an abundance of riches, we could make three or four different records and justify that to ourselves, but to make the best record you can, you have to steer away from the ones you can make easily. We're really trying to get into territory that we're not comfortable in. If that makes sense…"

Bono has gone on record as well calling the upcoming album a special one, and vital to the presence of the band in the world today. "They’re mad for it at the moment and they really want to make a new record. And they don’t care if it takes 10 years – they don’t care if it never happens again, they just want to get it right. Within the band we’ve been calling it '10 Reasons To Exist' – but I will tell you we might have at least six of them."

Last July, Bono made some promising comments about the band's creative progress, tantalizing fans with the news that U2 had the "best three weeks in the studio" in over three decades. While insisting that there's "no sense of entitlement" amongst the band, Bono shared that "We've had the best three weeks in the studio since 1979," he said. "I think they [the other band members] are very aware that U2 have to do something very special to have a reason to exist right now."

Bono's wife Ali Hewson stoked the fires of enthusiasm in an interview with The Guardian as well, saying, "They're well down the road on the new album and it sounds good. That's all I'm saying."

U2 released No Line on the Horizon back in 2009, their most recent album.